[TV Review] Teen Wolf Season 1 (2011) ★★★★☆

Teen Wolf is a dynamic and playful fresh story on werewolves and the supernatural.

Teen Wolf is a supernatural fantasy young adult series that lives up to its name. It’s all about werewolves, and one teen werewolf in particular. It’s a series with fresh characters, who all deal with high school problems, and who in time form a Scooby-pack. It’s exciting, full of humor and drama but it also has a big mystery concerning a murder that has to be solved. It’s a very diverse series that has different characters, but also with several different cultural folklore. This first season is an introduction to the lives of a few high school students who are getting sucked into the supernatural.

This first season consists of 12 episodes with each a duration of 42 minutes. It has a continuous story arc that concerns Scott and his new life as a werewolf and all the problems that come with it, asides from all the high school troubles.

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Plot

Scott McCall is a normal 16 year-old who wants to have a girlfriend and be in the lacrosse team. He lives in Beacon Hills with his mother Melissa who’s a nurse. His best friend is the adventurous and smart but impulsive Stiles Stilinski. Stiles lives with his father who’s the sheriff and one day he hears about a part of a dead body being found in the woods. So he convinces Scott to go out into the woods that night, where they not only find the other half of the body, but Scott is also attacked by something. When Scott gets bitten, he slowly realizes that he is bitten by a werewolf and that he is now becoming one. With the help of Stiles he tries to adjust to his new existence, while he meets the new girl at school, Allison Argent and falls in love. Derek Hale a descendent of a family that stems from Beacon Hills, and also a werewolf shows up and acts as his mentor.

Meanwhile this predatory werewolf is on the loose who’s on a killing spree, a couple of werewolf hunters are on his tail and things are getting pretty complicated.

Why you should watch it

Teen Wolf is a very fun series that tells a compelling story full of mystery and mythology about werewolves, while creating in a very short time a whole new universe that evolves around Beacon Hills. And now Scott is part of it.

It’s a fast paced series that reels you in very quickly with its wonderful characters and great mystery and compelling storylines. Everything is all very well put together, the supernatural elements and the teenage elements, which works really well to create a fantastic new YA series that is highly enjoyable.

This first season is a great introduction to Beacon Hills, to Scott and Stiles and the other characters. Scott is the main character and the most neutral, who can be moulded into whatever the series will throw at him. He works at the veterinarian with Deaton. Stiles has a firm character of his own. Very intelligent, comical and practical, Stiles is the one Scott can depend on and who is cause for a lot of fun situations. He’s charming and brings in the much needed comic relief.

Allison is the love interest but she, without even knowing it herself, has a big surprise for Scott, or rather her family does. They are a hunters family who hunt werewolves, which makes their relationship a bit complicated. Lydia Martin is the popular girl at school, Stiles’ life time secret crush and she befriends Allison. She is secretly highly intelligent but hides it and dates Jackson the most popular boy in school.

Derek Hale used to live in Beacon Hills with his family but they were driven away. Now he’s back and he becomes not only Scott’s mentor but he might have something to do with the murdered girl. He stays a very elusive figure, but a sexy one at that.

The interesting and relatable characters are the firm foundation of the series and when they finally get together as a group who know all about the supernatural that is going on in Beacon Hills and fight it, they are going to be a great diverse Scooby-pack.

While this is a young adult series, it’s also about all kinds of teenage drama, like romance, parents who got divorced, passing exams, wanting to be in the team, family troubles and much more, but this all plays out in the background to give the characters more context. It’s more diverse, and it gets even more diverse due to the different characters from different backgrounds and color and also different cultures with each their own folklore. Cliches about what a gay guy should look like and act are thrown overboard and every character is his/her own, whatever their sexuality, gender or color or background. It’s just a given and not a ‘thing’ in its own.

But it’s also about the supernatural forces that roam Beacon Hills, mysteries and all sorts of danger. Each element is shown in a very playful way, while addressing difficult themes or horror. But it never becomes cheesy or too serious. All the different elements are well balanced out to create a highly entertaining series.

My favorite part

I really do love Stiles. Without him the series wouldn’t be half that fun. He brings in some flavor, witty remarks and great undertakings that result in even more fun or danger or both. Although he’s actually Scott’s sidekick, he’s more important to the story, to make it playful and energetic. Scott himself can be a bit serious or less interesting and Stiles makes up for that exceedingly. But Lydia is quite a character as well. She’s feisty and very intelligent and a bit of a dark horse.

Ratings

Rating: ★★★★☆

Epic factor: ★★★☆☆

Thrill factor: ★★★☆☆

Drama factor: ★★★☆☆

Entertainment factor: ★★★★★

Cast and crew

Teen Wolf is created by Jeff Davies. It stars Tyler Posey (Scott McCall), Dylan O’Brien (Stiles Stilinski), Tyler Hoechlin (Derek Hale), Crystal Reed (Allison Argent), Holland Roden (Lydia Martin), Seth Gilliam (Dr Alan Deaton), Colton Haynes (Jackson Whittemore), JR Bourne (Chris Argent), Melissa Ponzio (Melissa McCall), Linden Ashby (Sheriff Noah Stilinksi) and Ian Bohen (Peter Hale).